


Homesnuck

by Fly



Category: Homestuck, Metal Gear
Genre: Adventure, Aliens, Apocalypse, Chatting & Messaging, Children, Gen, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, Next-Gen, One Shot, SBURB, Terrible idea no-one talked me out of, WTF, fusion crossover, one canon in the style of another
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-21
Updated: 2011-11-21
Packaged: 2017-10-26 09:37:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/281504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fly/pseuds/Fly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sunny Gurlukovich has been disconnected from the Internet for thirteen years now, but she's more excited about getting to play a new EXTREME IMMERSION VIRTUAL REALITY SIMULATION PROTOCOL GAME with her friends. But in a game like this, evil HIDEs belOw the surface.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Homesnuck

**Author's Note:**

> For the **deluxe version** with appropriate formatting, please read this on [Google Docs](https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=17vFYtwa5rdic26bCk9Eumoug3iqdHkclMgICKeJtg-I).

A young girl stands in her bedroom. It just so happens that, although her birthday will likely remain unknown forever, today is the thirteenth anniversary of the day she was cerebrally disconnected from the Internet. Though it was thirteen years ago that she became, for the first time, a truly autonomous being, she is less concerned with the significance of this occasion than with the new game she is planning to play today. Since she already has a name, what will the game’s name be?

==> Sunny: MORONPLOT GAMESUCK SHITTYDISK: WRITTEN, PRODUCED AND DIRECTED BY HIDEO KOJIMA

The game you are preparing to play is called SLid, a commercial virtual reality simulation protocol that you have been anticipating ever since you hacked evidence of its existence out of a closely-guarded game industry server a long, long time ago. You leaked it out all over the Internet. It was beautiful. It would have been more beautiful had anyone actually read your data. Except for the game critics waxing poetic about what the gameplay ludologically represents, who are using your unofficial press release to allow them to give the game sickeningly high scores without actually having to pay for or play it.

There’s actually a desperately tight lock down about the game, for some reason, so you don’t even know the premise of the story or gameplay, only that it’s really good and surprising and fun and artistic and you will love it. A small part of you is cynical enough to suspect that the lockdown is to obscure details about the game that might be unpopular, though. Like a BULLSHIT MAIN CHARACTER SWITCH or something.

Speaking of main characters, your name is SUNNY GURLKOVICH-EMMERICH. Your room displays your variety of interests. You are APESHIT BANANAS at computers seeing as your brain was physically connected to the entire Internet as you were growing, and you mostly use your intuitive understanding of technology to perform ILLEGAL AND ANNOYING HACKS to retrieve interesting digital information from various sources, or occasionally, during your darker moods, to BRING DOWN SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES because you JUST FEEL LIKE IT. You have not been caught yet. That is how you know you are truly APESHIT BANANAS, not just REGULAR BANANAS like HAL.

You also enjoy, collect and create ephemera involved in FORTUNE-TELLING, which you are NOT PARTICULARLY GOOD AT BY MOST STANDARDS. Nevertheless, developing new ways of divining the future excites you and is one of your GREATEST PASSIONS IN LIFE below EXTREME IMMERSION VIRTUAL REALITY SIMULATION PROTOCOL GAMING.

What do you do?

==> Sunny: Retrieve arms from chest.

You reach into your chest and withdraw your extra-unhilarious ARMS, which right now consist of a beautiful SOCOM with a customised silencer and its associated ammunition stockpile. War is never funny.

==> Sunny: Mess with gun.

You run around your room for a while as best as you are able, posing around with it, likely looking like KIND OF A DOOFUS. It’s a lot of fun, though, until your computer makes an alarming ping that startles you into falling over. You never really got the hang of walking in a straight line.

 

The bad news is that during the fall, you accidentally squeezed the trigger. You were pointing it right at your computer at the time, too. Nice one, idiot.

The good news is that you inserted a robotic device of your own devising into its firing mechanism that uses a hardcoded fortune-telling algorithm to judge the psychological state of the user. Upon firing, the gun predicts the possible future of the shot that is to be made, judges whether or not that future is one that benefits the gun’s owner, and, if this is not the case, does not make that shot.

The mechanism whirs. Fate is tested. Fate speaks. The gun does not discharge, and your computer remains intact - once again, a victory for classic design! It really is the most seriously incredible invention ever and you have no idea why the government keeps ignoring your emails suggesting it becomes standard in the equipment for the entire American military. It’s not even that expensive. You made it in about ten minutes out of a bunch of wire, a spring, and a little plastic coin.

Also the gun wasn’t loaded and had the safety on.

==> Answer ally.

FreedomDothRise    
[   
FDR   
]   
  
began monologuing at   
  
JovianFuturesKnown   
  
[   
JFK   
]

FDR: heeeeeeey.

FDR: did your copy of SLid come today? mine did

FDR: it’s installing

FDR: i can’t wait

FDR: i seriously can’t but i havvveee toooo it isn’t fair

FDR: wait i think dad just came up

FDR: i’m not supposed to be playing this. he says combat sims destroy your brain or something. you know i totally respect him

FDR: but that is why i am totally not going to tell him i’m playing it.

FDR: oh my god don’t tell me you’re messing around with your stupid gun again.

FDR: you don’t even like fighting. i don’t understand you sometimes.

FDR: besides dad always says luck doesn’t exist, so there

FDR: :P

JFK: Wait, how did you know I was playing with my gun??

JFK: A-also, you know fortune telling isn’t luck, right? It’s science.

JFK: If you had a machine that could accurately measure the location and momentum of every single atom in the entire world or even just in your house, you could logically predict the future, right?

JFK: Fortune telling is basically a way of doing that, only since we can’t determine all the information, we have to use external means to take random sampling of it. Fortune telling is a way of interpreting the data of a tiny microcosm in the present and using that to make logical predictions about the macrocosm in the future.

FDR: mannnn you are really good at opening up a can of monologue for someone with a speech impediment

FDR: i can’t hear you over the sound of this INSTALLLLL SCREEEENnnnnn

FDR: it’s not actually making a sound but i just looked at the counter oh wow it’s at 45%

FDR: i just kicked the wall in excitement and it made my chair spin around THREE WHOLE TIMES

FDR: my chair’s not even greased

FDR: now i’m standing on it

FDR: this is going to be so awesome

JFK: Uh, a-are you cool with playing with LBJ when she gets here?

FDR: yeah! i like her, she’s totally fun

FDR: i was going to suggest that

JFK: And I know you a-aren’t going to like this, but I also really want to play with someone else too.

FDR: ????

JFK: GWB.

FDR: auuuugh

FDR: i still don’t understand why you like him so much

FDR: but i don’t mind. i’m cool with it.

FDR: as long as i get to play!!!!!

JFK: My copy’s installed already. I’ve been sort of fixing bits of the code (:

FDR: wooooooow

FDR: i wish i was as smart as you

FDR: GWB. isn’t he like 40???

JFK: His birthday was this week. He’s fourteen.

FDR: but he talks all the time about how old a man he is and stuff

FDR: and he types like a total idiot

JFK: I assumed he was just d-dyslexic? Isn’t he?

FDR: and some of the things he says like about girls and romance especially are just so weird that -

FDR: i will be totally honest: i am not 100% sure GWB is human

JFK: He’s human enough!!

JFK: He’s my friend.

FDR: i know i know

FDR: i really am cool with it since you like him

FDR: just if he gives you any trouble or whatever you come to me

FDR: you can use your amazing computer whisperer skills to find where he lives and i will tell my dad and he will travel there and kick his face in ninja style

JFK: Thanks, I t-think? He’s a bit awkward but I think he’s a nice guy.

FDR: holy heck i just looked at the progress bar and it’s 70% done

FDR: 70 whole percents

FDR: it’s like i just had to get up and scream for a while at my monitor

FDR: this is going to be so AAAAAWWWWESOME

JFK: Aren’t true ninjas supposed to be quiet and stoic and stuff?

FDR: that was hypothetical i am not actually screaming or dad would find me

FDR: aren’t you supposed to be a master of stealth yourself? you should know that

==> Sunny: Continue editing code.

You decide to minimise the chat window for a while and leave FDR to his excitement, which you know is a mood he can sustain for frighteningly long periods of time with no external input whatsoever. Responding to him in this state is just providing him with fuel.

He had a point about that master of stealth comment, though. You have long since decided that if you ever had to fight you would use STEALTH COMBAT, since it is the only method of combat that aligns with your principles that WAR OCCASIONALLY HAS A PURPOSE but it is ALWAYS, ALWAYS BAD TO KILL PEOPLE, which you have had drummed into your head by HAL and HIM for as long as you can remember. Unfortunately you are prevented from being an actual MASTER OF STEALTH by the fact that you keep doing that thing where you trip over the floor.

This is part of the reason you have been improving the VR code. Since VR gaming technology trickled down from military combat simulations, most gaming sims are based pretty closely on the player’s own physical ability, with obvious ridiculous exaggerations here and there in order to make the player feel more powerful if they’re playing as a godbeast or minotaur or Rambo or whatever. Home versions of VR games have difficulty modes where enemy strength and flesh thickness is adjusted to the physical attributes of the average (adult, male) home gamer, but professional VR gamers who play on European Extreme on every game have to work out for hours a day, keep their body in basically the same condition as a soldier. The result is that most gaming forums are full of guys bragging about their pecs. You think gamer culture is possibly THE WORST ONE EVER.

So you’re boosting your avatar’s strength to give you a more reasonable advantage. This is a difficult job that has to be executed with subtlety, since you want to go far enough that you don’t actually die, but you don’t want to go so far that the game stops being actually fun.

The code has a lot of bits in it that seem a little weird, though.

==> Sunny: Look closer.

Like this part, here. The language looks fine but if you look at the machine code instead, it’s actually using two different versions of the same syntax which have invisibly different functions. Then when you back out of the machine code over here and return to the language, it’s a completely different language, nothing like anything you’ve seen before. And you’ve seen them all before, being apeshit bananas as you are. And what about here? You aren’t usually allowed to use animated gifs in code. And over here, the machine code has a 2 in it.

At the end of the day it’s all a bunch of ones and zeros except for that one stupid two and even though you can read that as your first language, it is kind of longhandy. Besides, you’d rather play the game the way the developers intended, so you’re happy to trust them with the more dubious stuff for now. You can always fix it later if it presents problems.

FDR is making your IMonologue client flash quite hysterically.

FDR: sunny

FDR: sunnysunnysunnysunny

FDR: stop coding and help me sunny

JFK: What have you done?

FDR: i haven’t done anything it’s just

FDR: my dad caught me installing the sim and he ripped the computer out of the wall

JFK: How are you typing this right now?

FDR: on mom’s phone but

FDR: obviously i can’t play games on this thing this is unfair.

FDR: this is seriously the worst thing that has ever happened to me.

JFK: Oh no. Poor FDR!

FDR: don’t talk to me everything is worthless

JFK: Your dad has his own issues to think about, right? He doesn’t understand that the stuff we play is harmless.

FDR: but it iisssssss!!!

JFK: Yeah, and we both know that, b-but it’s hard for him to see it that way sometimes, I think?

JFK: Just like Hal. He doesn’t like me leaving the house, because of his own problems.

JFK: But you love your dad and he loves you so I’m sure he’ll come to his senses eventually.

FDR: but what do i do until then

FDR: i am dying right here

FDR: i should take the honorable ninja way out of this and kick the shit out of some stuff.

JFK: No, I think that might just make things worse.

JFK: Everything will be okay! You just have to relax! It’s destiny.

FDR: is that one of your fortunes because if so i hate it.

JFK: Nope, it’s a hypothesis :). Would it make you feel better if I took your fortune?

FDR: no

JFK: Just let me get down to the oven.

[   
JovianFuturesKnown   
 has changed their AWAYNESS to SEMIPRESENT]

==> Sunny: Approach oven.

The oven is down the stairs, out of your room. You start on them, paying extra special attention on not falling over your feet. You are successfully almost managing when you see -

Oh no.

The stair-rail is woven with tinsel. There’s a pennant of shiny paper letters strung across the middle of the living room. It reads, “HAPPY 13TH AUTONOMANIVERSARY!!!”, in Comic Sans. In front of the carnage, there is HAL.

Distracted from the arduous task of placing one foot in front of the other, you go flying over a robot prototype HAL has placed on the steps for future transportation and land on your chin. You wish he would stop leaving ALL THOSE STUPID ROBOTS around.

HAL saunters up to you and says hello. He is wearing a party hat.

==> Sunny: Abscond!

HAL appears just in front of your grabbing range when you are inches from the stairs. You can tell from looking at his expression that he really wants to talk with you, perhaps about how special and precious you are on this day that you were disconnected from the internet. He spreads his arms wide.

==> Sunny: Auto-Hugparry.

You do wish you could deflect him with one of the many STUPID ROBOTS. Perhaps it would send him careening off and deliver you a huge booty of experience points.

However, this is not a combat sim, and you can’t do that. Besides, it has been drummed too deeply into you that violence is wrong.

Resigned, you accept the hug.

He has something metallic, like a belt buckle or something, that’s digging into part of you. He isn’t letting go.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

FreedomDothRise   
 [   
FDR   
] began monologuing at    
GeniusWithinBeasts   
 [   
GWB   
]

FDR: uh, GWB? is that you?

GWB: ook ook ook 8=D

GWB: whatss up my bonobro

FDR: uhhhhh. have you seen JFK around? has she been talking to you today?

GWB: no 8=(

GWB: actuly i havent seen her much at al

FDR: she ran off to tell my fortune like she does and i haven’t seen her since

FDR: she was gonna help me

FDR: we were going to play a gaaaaame

GWB: when i last saw her she kept ooking abowt a game

GWB: i asced her to let me play because i wanna play i wanna play

GWB: she sed yes

GWB: so i was wateing for her

FDR: man why do you type like such a moron festival. it makes everything you say sound like you’re mocking me

GWB: ecskuze me not al of us are entitled to formall edukasion

FDR: my dad says that’s a human right.

GWB: ookin raseists

GWB: ive seen things u woudnt beleeve atack tanks roling onto the front at the shores of hawaii guns in flames by the raydeoactive exclushun zone gate

GWB: i bet uve never even smelt the hindqwarters of a young female so deep in heat she keeps grindin her red swolen rump agenst trees

FDR: what

FDR: i don’t know what you’re implying

FDR: i’m a fourteen-year-old nerd ffs

FDR: also you freak me out

FDR: so for that reason after careful consideration i’m going to assume that the last thing you typed was just another one of your dumb typos and you meant to say ‘sorry FDR for being such an uncontrollable weirdo’.

GWB: anyway do i get to play ur game

GWB: please please please

GWB: please please

GWB: please

FDR: i guess you do. do you have a copy?

GWB: no but my prime mate has al kinds of stuf i bet he has a copy

FDR: it’s pretty rare...

GWB: not a problem for him

GWB: ook 8=)

GWB: and i have this inventry modus caled the ds modus its basicly for this kind of thing

FDR: god i remember when sunny was trying to explain to me about her new modus. she went on foreeeeeeeveer

FDR: thanks in advance for not explaining to me in detail how it works

GWB: i acrue points doin arbitry tasks which i can then redem on items from the modustore

GWB: but items i pick up hav to be unlocked with ptz before i can use them

GWB: after i have thogh i can use them at any time

GWB: which is pretty ookin convenient

GWB: hey kid want me to hook u up with some cool gunz

FDR: i hate talking to you

Well, that was pointless. You are now this boy, by the way.

Your name is JOHN. You do not give your last name because true ninjas do not have last names. You want to say to the player that you’re sorry for interrupting when you were just getting into the groove with the other character, but that’s just how you roll, man. It says on this chart you have pinned up on your wall that BULLSHIT MAIN CHARACTER SWITCHES are always 100% Ninja Style.

You try and do everything you do Ninja Style, including your room, which is why posters on the walls display ELEGANT HISTORICAL WOODCUTS FROM ERAS PAST, and why you have SPECIFICALLY ALTERED the floor outside your room to CREAK REVEALINGLY if intruders approach. Your mom can’t get past it without revealing her presence, but your DAD can, because your DAD is cool, and by cool, you mean totally sweet. You don’t mean ‘cool’ like most kids mean when they say their DAD is ‘cool’, as the gaping wirey space that was once your PC can attest to. Behind the gaping space is a shelf full of part of your ACTION FIGURE COLLECTION.

==> John: Fondly regard collection.

Ohhhhhhh man let’s see. You have loads of video game ninjas and loads of movie ninjas and cool looking guys with robot parts and Robocop and about eight Batmans because even though Batman is not technically a ninja he is still Ninja Style, and just looking at it makes you remember how awesome the world is that robots and ninjas and cyborgs and Batman are all real. Maybe not Batman. BUT HE COULD TOTALLY BE. AND THAT’S AWESOME.

There’s something in that collection that doesn’t seem to fit, though.

==> John: Examine unusual figure.

Where did this come from? It’s neither a cyborg nor a ninja and thus does not fall under your usual action figure collection standards.

It’s a big, really meaty guy, which is definitely not a ninja thing. He’s carrying a massive gun like the kind that guy had in Predator, which is not a ninja thing either, although the Predator kind of is, thinking about it. He’s bald and he’s got dark skin and is covered in tattoos, but no cyborg parts, or if he does have them they aren’t visible, so he might as well not be a cyborg for the purposes of your collection. Honestly, at least by fictonal cyborg standards, if we’re going to start calling everyone cyborgs even if they have no visible metallic parts anywhere we might as well abolish the term.

==> John: Flick the figure in the snout to establish curiosity.

You do so.

The figurine roars into life and starts shooting little BB pellets everywhere.

There doesn’t seem to be a way of turning it off.

==> John: Just put it back and pretend you never touched it.

You can’t do that. It’ll just fire all over the place. You decide to put it into your inventory instead.

It used to be your DAD’s inventory. It’s pretty useful. The only real difference between it and Sunny’s is that yours bundles similar items into groups, which is handy for making it let you use more than one thing at once.

==> John: Quickly pester Sunny again.

Oh well. Worth a go.

FDR: sunnnnnnnnnn

FDR: i was trying to think of some amusing song lyrics that start with the word sun but i cant, let me start again

FDR: here comes the sunnnnnnnnn

FDR: doo doo doo doo

FDR: please

FDR: ?????

Nothing. She still isn’t there.

If you could be Sunny, which you can’t, you’ll see that HAL is holding a cybernetic ukelele and is in the middle of a suicidally long speech about all the love, feelings and respect which caused him to realise he had to write you a special, Sapienciverssary song, that came straight from his heart, and that you will treasure for the rest of your life, and pass down to future generations. As far as you would have

 

 

been aware, he doesn’t even play the cybernetic ukelele. You would be trying very hard to swallow your cake with enough force to make your ears pop so it wouldn’t sound as clear.

But you aren’t Sunny and you can’t be her anyway, so you don’t know anything about this pointless diversion.

==> John: Steel yourself for a high-stakes stealth mission.

Oh man here is what you’re going to do. You’re going to make your way downstairs, invisible to the naked eye. You’re going to creep into DAD’S SPECIAL ROOM, where DAD puts everything he confiscates from you. And you’re going to take back your computer.

There are several problems with this plan, which you consider mostly arbitrarily. First of all, DAD will soon notice the computer is missing, and then you’ll be in SERIOUS NINJA TROUBLE, but this is something you are willing to take as it comes, since ninjas are always helpful to their friends in need, whatever the personal cost. And second of all, the easiest way to get down into DAD’S SPECIAL ROOM is by dropping through your window and climbing in below using your GRAPPLING HOOK.

==> John: Grapple with hook.

You realise you have your GRAPPLING HOOK in the inventory around the time you are already halfway down stairs. This is just as well, because MOM immediately shouts vaguely upwards from the kitchen to choose what you want for breakfast.

You love your MOM’s breakfasts. No-one else makes food the way she does. It is the best. You don’t understand why DAD insists on doing most of the cooking.

==> John: Evade!

If you have one of MOM’s big sloppy breakfasts, you’ll get grease all over yourself and your computer, if you even remember to get it. Your duty is clear. First computer. Then breakfast.

You swiftly unstairs yourself and slip back into your room. You don’t think MOM noticed you.

You HOOK to your window frame and carefully wiggle outside.

==>

LitByJustice   
 [   
LBJ   
] began monologuing at    
FreedomDothRise   
 [   
FDR   
]

LBJ: OH MY GOD. YOU’RE ONLINE.

LBJ: ^__________________^

FDR: i am halfway down a wall right now

FDR: typing one handed, swaying in the breeze

LBJ: more ninja stuff? OKAY.

FDR: so can this wait

LBJ: I bet you can’t guess why I’m calling you right now, shibrobi. ^__^

FDR: i don’t think you realise. if i fall, i might actually die.

LBJ: YOU PROMISED we could talk about ninjas again.

FDR: i appreciate your enthusiasm, bronoichi

LBJ: you’re my only friend who likes ninjas the way I do! PLUS YOU ARE ONE.

FDR: but i think my hand is slipping.

LBJ: slipping?

FDR: yes.

LBJ: THIS IS THE ARMY NOW, ASSHOLE.

LBJ: YOUR MISSION IS TO CONTINUE RAPELLING DOWN THAT WALL AT ANY COST.

LBJ: SOMETIMES IT IS NECESSARY TO CUT COMMUNICATION FOR THE GOOD OF THE MISSION. GOT IT, MAGGOT?

FDR: so wait. you mean, i should stop talking to you. even though you were the one who wouldn’t stop talking to me in the first place.

LBJ: SHUT UP, I’M ASKING THE QUESTIONS HERE.

LBJ: YOUR COMRADES CAN BE YOUR WORST ENEMIES.

LBJ: IN FACT, I COMMAND YOU NOT TO LISTEN TO ME OR TAKE ANY OF MY ADVICE.

LBJ: wait, I didn’t mean that.

LBJ: please just pretend I DIDN’T SAY

LBJ: hold on, that doesn’t work either.

LBJ: um.

LitByJustice   
 [   
LBJ   
] has blocked    
FreedomDothRise   
 [   
FDR   
]

You are just stringing together a bunch of thoughts about how much you need fewer friends with weird split personalities before your grip slips and you drop.

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You are now Sunny.

HAL has finished his song. It’s not that you aren’t grateful, but a little part of you worries that you’re living mostly as an extension of HAL. A little part of you would like your thirteenth Autonomaniversary to celebrate, you know, your autonomousness. That said, after uncringing your jaw, you tell HAL thank you, your song was very beautiful.

He hands you a small box. It’s wrapped in bright paper, and the tag says:

Sunny,

The most important part of being human is passing things down to further generations.

This is what I pass on to you.

Please pass it down yourself, to other people you know.

-HAL

==> Sunny: Unwrap gift.

You prepare to depaperify the box, but then the vidscreen rings in the back room. HAL motions for you to stay put and leaves. You put down the box - HAL never likes it when you open gifts without him watching your reaction.

==> Sunny: Quick! Get to the kitchen and tell that fortune!

You stumble to your feet and run for the kitchen.

SOLID IV, LIQUID VI and SOLIDUS VII have all been laying, so the fridge is full of eggs, some of which are wrinkly and shaped like bananas because Solidus VII is new and not very good at egging yet, poor girl, but it definitely works well enough for your purposes. You tip a little oil into the skillet and get a good heat going.

==> Sunny: Set timer.

Maybe when you were younger you needed that. But now, you don’t. GA-KO sits on the shelf, covered with grease and dust from the cooker. She is discoloured from sunlight and age, and there is a crack running on the glass covering her clock face. The paint has melted slightly on her eyes, making them look heavy-lidded and grim. She is now OLD GA-KO. You wouldn’t chuck her out for the world, although she could definitely use a clean, and it is with that in mind that you place her into your INVENTORY.

You inventory used to belong to HIM before he died. You used to play hide-and-seek with him in the winter, and you would follow his footsteps in the snow in the garden, and never figure out where he was, ever. It was frightening, in a weird way; like being left alone. But anyway. Yours uses the OLD SYSTEM. You can access whatever you want whenever you want, but it’s got some really tight limits on how much you can carry around with you, since you haven’t and don’t plan on defeating any bosses.

It accepts OLD GA-KO, but not without creaking a little. Damn, this thing is ancient. Every time you put anything into it you fret that it will snap and spray the contents in little spinning containers all around you like a Tetris shower.

==> Sunny: Start telling fortunes!

The eggs sink into the oil with a happy sizzle. When you were younger, you only used to be able to tell obvious things from the eggs - mostly tell overall good luck from overall bad luck. You didn’t realise at the time that the eggs were telling you far more. The run of the white, the way it mingles with others in the pan, the patterns of bubbles - through a system of painstaking scientific experiments you have catalogued their symbolism into something that can be read.

You use your INVENTORY to EQUIP the CODEX OVIA SOLIS. The grease-stained grimoire lands on the countertop with a comfortable thud.

==> Sunny: Read overall fortune.

There are four eggs in the pan, representing you, John, and your friends LBJ and GWB. The whites have blended into a smooth mass - you can barely see the join at all. So this means -

You scrabble through the Codex. Breakfast Indices 100-150 have information on conjunctive formations. You compare its script to the size of the hole in the centre of the ring of eggs. Larger than your thumbnail. In that case, it’s a Ring Formation rather than a Closed Disc, which implies a connection of mutuality and longevity, a destined bond, an ouroborous. Alternatively, as suggested by Breakfast Indices 760-774 on imitation, it could be resembling a CD, like the game you plan on playing. Or it could even be both.

Fortune-telling is a difficult business, sort of like spoken language. Sometimes, words can mean multiple things. You just have to kind of ride with the context. That’s the hard part.

You’ve had many fortunes for a while suggesting playing SLid will be a very important experience for you and your friends. So you assume this is what the eggs are insisting to you. You have many more friends, but, when you started getting predictions about the game four months ago, you received a fortune insisting that you must - MUST - play with only the three friends with whom you plan on playing. Fate led them to want it as much as you wanted them to be fated. Fortune-telling and its implied lack of free will can get quite frightening to you sometimes.

==> Sunny: Read your fortune.

The egg representing yourself is on the top left. Twelve striations have formed on the skin atop the yolk, diagonally away from yourself and to the left - the yolk has slid on the white somewhat and is pushing up against the pan. Brown marks around the rim are even, but spiky, some even shaped like stars. You skim through several chunks of Breakfast Indices.

What you conclude is that you are being guarded by something, a stranger, that you do not understand and cannot understand - either one of twelve strangers, or (less likely, you think, but still a coherent reading) a being that is twelve times twelve years old. In fact, the egg insists that it was that being that is currently communicating with HAL, but you cannot understand any more of its detail about that being. This indicates that it is something outside your realm of experience - perhaps, you let yourself think, with a flurry of excitement in your stomach, an alien, represented by the stars. Twelve of them - a whole race of adorable, dangerous, but romantic aliens which are just non-human enough to be interesting but human enough to be relatable and sexually attractive. You can only dream.

Perhaps it’s even    
a boy   
.

O-Oh gosh.

==> Sunny: Read John’s fortune.

On the underside of John’s sunken yolk, there is scorch marks. The pattern of dark and light you immediately read as being your first language, 011000100110100101101110011000010111001001111001. It says, in English -

... “DON’T COUNT ON IT?”

Well, that’s never happened to you before. Perhaps the egg is defective.

You make up your mind not to tell him this, and to make up something based on his horoscope instead - you ARE prejudiced against any form of fortune telling which requires you to have a birthday, but it’s better than nothing, in this case.

==> Sunny: Read LBJ’s fortune.

You lean over the egg, and then slip. Your forearm karate-chops the pan’s handle and the eggs ARC SPECTACULARLY out the open window and onto -

\- oh. No.

Yellow yolk is dribbling sedately down the black granite of HIS gravestone. You stare at it for a while, feeling your heart break.

HAL is coming. No time. You’ll fix the headstone later. For now, you turn off the hob, scoop up your gift and hare upstairs on all fours to minimise tripping risk. It’s imperative that you start the game. You hope that HIS sense of humour is enough that he won’t mind.

==> John: Land already.

Okay.

You attempt to disperse the kinetic energy of impact with a NINJA COMBAT ROLL, but succeed only in leaning forward bumping your head against the wall. It hurts, but it hurts less than it otherwise would.

Your grappling hook drops down and conks you on the skull. You catch it in your hands, trying to ignore the pain. The hooks have broken off of it - it appears to be broken.

Stupid cheap thing. You knew that you shouldn’t have counted on it.

LitByJustice   
 [   
LBJ   
] began monologuing at    
FreedomDothRise   
 [   
FDR   
]

LBJ: um.

LBJ: I JUST WANT TO APOLOGISE for being so awful back there.

FDR: i think my scalp is bleeding

LBJ: can I make it up to you?

LBJ: I WANT TO HELP WITH YOUR MISSION >____O

FDR: haha, that smiley still looks to me like a man lying on a sun lounger

FDR: but i’m not sure how you can help me? me over here and you there...

LBJ: yes. DID I TELL YOU BEFORE that I got hooked up with a new computer?

LBJ: It does EVERYTHING.

FDR: like what?

LBJ: like ALL KINDS OF VR SIMS, video, um, nuclear test simulation...

FDR: it’s a military computer isn’t it

LBJ: KIND OF but it’s got a civilian OS on it and everything.

FDR: it’s black market

FDR: isn’t it

LBJ: HEY. black market goods are ninja style, MAGGOT.

FDR: i don’t like it when you call me that. it’s kind of upsetting.

LBJ: I GET TO CALL YOU WHAT I WANT SINCE I’M IN CHARGE HERE, NOT YOU.

LBJ: hehehehe! BUT ANYWAY. I’ll hook you up with one.

FDR: that sounds kind of frighteningly expensive, as well as illegal

LBJ: it’s FINE, okay. Let me take care of it! I CAN TAKE CARE OF LOTS OF THINGS.

LBJ: GET BACK IN THE HOUSE. THAT’S AN ORDER, WORM. -__^

FDR: if you say so

FDR: aaaaaaugh

FDR: my legs

It doesn’t seem like there’s much for you to do except limp back into the house and nurse your bruised ego. You hope LBJ’s computer can get here fast.

==> John: Be the weird shouty girl.

You can’t be the weird shouty girl. She has way too many things to be weird and shouty about. She has lots of things to take care of. You’d only get in her way, ASSHOLE. DROP ON THE FLOOR AND GIVE ME TWENTY. YEAH, YOU. I CAN SEE YOU’RE NOT TAKING ME SERIOUSLY. WELL, I DON’T TAKE YOUR MOTHER SERIOUSLY. OR YOUR WELFARE SERIOUSLY. HOW ABOUT THAT?

So how about we be this person instead?

Well, maybe not a person. It depends. It depends on how you define person.

Just be this - well, this autonomous being - for now. Maybe work some things out.

==> ???: Look.

You can’t look, since you are asleep!

Are you dreaming of a special place? Maybe. It’s hard to tell. Before you sleep, you have to ingest a quantity of NARCOSIS NANOMACHINES to numb and reduce the parts of your mind which produce the primal, violent and planet-destroying imagery that plagues members of your species when you sleep. Narcosis Nanomachines do bad things to your head. But they definitely do less bad things than the dreams would. They would retrain your thoughts around them, and your spirit would gradually regress further and further into the deranged primitive being you were uplifted from, slowly rotting away your consciousness. It doesn’t destroy that part of your psyche, but it keeps it at bay.

You think you are on a battlefield. And you know it extends all over the entire world. It pulses, as clear and regimented as a machine.

You tightly grip the MAIN LASER CONTROL STICK and -

==> ???: Wake up.

You wake up on your PILE OF SODA CANS. The truck bounces along over potholes and craters which used to be full of mines. You stretch and yawn and cry out to greet the driver.

He ooks back at you. 893 always did understand you, somewhat.

Your IMonologue handle is GeniusWithinBeasts and your name is LITTLE GRAY. You WERE RECOVERED FROM A GOVERNMENT LABORATORY under DEEPLY HAZY CIRCUMSTANCES, so while you have no knowledge of the circumstances of your birth and origin, this week is the fourteenth anniversary of the day you were cerebrally disconnected from the FBI’s life support system, making you a fully autonomous being for the first time. You are not Homo sapiens, but being considered a monkey would be SEVERELY REDUCTIVE. You are something far more complicated than that; something far more foreign, and strange, and dangerous. Whether this is the strange dangerousness of an alien king or the strange dangerousness of a monkey with cerebral implants is something you have no knowledge of and can only guess as to the answer.

You are somewhat infatuated with TERRIBLE CONSPIRACY THEORIES and MONKEY NEWS of which you consider yourself something of a buff. You are also fond of RAMPANT CONSUMERISM, and your PILE contains various bits of BRANDED TAT that you were unable to resist buying. You are a KEEN ASTRONOMER and an eager WATCHER OF THE SKIES. Mostly, though, you like HAVING A GOOD TIME. You consider yourself to be a FREE, SWINGING SPIRIT which no-one can willingly control. You’re an animal, man.

It shouldn’t be necessary to describe how you tend to speak, because your throat and mouth is not developed to such a degree that you can produce human language. However, your long, dextrous toes are reasonably good at touch-typing. Your large, dexterous brain is not reasonably good at spelling, though.

==> Gray: Slam a soda.

You rummage around the can pile with your feet before locating and detabbing one that feels heavy and cold. Glug, glug, glug. Oook.

NARC contains a frightening amount of chemicals, at least three of which cause horrific tumours, one of those same ones helping to take the edge off your Nanomachine Narcosis. Alertness spreads through your thoughtholes. You are now thoroughly awake and ready to get back to your favourite on-road pastime.

==> Gray: Indulge romantic impulses.

You pull up to the computer and turn it back on.

Human romance has many different, varying emotions of different and varying intensity that is all placed under one word - love. Represented with the one symbol -   
♥   
. Monkey romance is different to that.

The key difference is that human social cohesion, the thing that caused the race to become the most intelligent and dominant species on the planet (that evolved on it natively, of course), is based on different forces to monkey social cohesion. When two humans feel mating fondness for each other, they experience love, a long term emotion that keeps them together for long enough for them to raise generations of children. Humans are slow and risky breeders, with a great deal of mental space to feel emotion in, right from their highest considerations to their most primal and lizardly instincts.

Monkeys, however, live in small but closely-connected social groups, frequently with a strict heirarchy, requiring the expression and isolation of various different kinds of love and romance, some of which would be wildly alien to human readers, and -

Well, and no-one really cares. There will be no other monkey characters in this story. It will never be plot relevant.

What you are really trying to express is: you like watching videos online of monkeys grooming each other. What? What’s wrong with it?

==> Gray: Go through the channel of YouTube user Monk_Rump.

You close your mind to everything except the silky, narrating tones of David Attenborough. About eight years ago the BBC decided it was completely irreplaceable and ponied up the cash to have his mind and larynx transferred into a digitally-controlled cybernetic carapace. It gives him the ability to traverse the hottest desert and coldest tundras without effort, as well as super reflexes and laser eyes. You are pretty sure 893 sold them the parts for that last one, but he won’t tell you for sure, because 893 is a pointlessly enigmatic asshole. You love him.

You are just about to click, when:

LitByJustice   
 [   
LBJ   
] began monologuing at    
GeniusWithinBeasts    
[   
GWB   
]

LBJ: HELLO THERE!

GWB: oooook to u to

GWB: howare u geting on with ur computer

LBJ: WELL it’s basically great.

LBJ: But I wanted to ask you a favor.

GWB: mor gunz for ur range rite

LBJ: Nope!

LBJ: Do you think you could send a computer to John?

GWB: wo

LBJ: ??

GWB: whoo

LBJ: OHHH. FreedomDothRise.

GWB: he dosent lick me i think hes rasist

LBJ: Does he KNOW you think you might be an alien? I CAN GUARANTEE if you tell him that he’ll think you’re AWESOME.

GWB: he dosent beleve me

LBJ: Well, maybe if you do something nice for him, he’ll start to respect you.

GWB: oook oook oook i dont care wat he thinks

GWB: this is bisness were al only here for the monkey

GWB: that ment money

GWB: it was suposed to be a pun but it kind of changed the meaning

LBJ: IT’S OKAY.

LBJ: we all know you’re monkey-themed.

LBJ: Out of curiosity, what’s it like over there?

GWB: prety nice why

GWB: was watchng videos of some choice macaque alphabitches getting there groom on

LBJ: NO THAT’S NOT WHAT I MEANT. I meant battlefield-wise.

GWB: sort of carm i gess

GWB: not that meny exploshuns just one or too u no

LBJ: But there are explosions?

GWB: well yeah its a batlefeld

LBJ: SWOON! @________@

GWB: ookook ill get the computer now

LBJ: THANK YOU SO MUCH.

LBJ: Um, I JUST REALISED THAT WHEN I TALK LIKE THIS IT SOUNDS SARCASTIC. I SWEAR IT ISN’T INTENDED LIKE THAT.

LBJ: Uh, I’m doing it again.

LitByJustice   
 has blocked GeniusWithinBeasts

==> Gray: Prepare computer for FDR.

Using your own computer, you pull up FDR’s IMonologue stamp on the SATERMAP. You hit the white button.

The SATERMAP CO-ORDS have now been fed into the COURIERCANNON FEEDER.

893 looks around, but then gets back to swerving out of the blast from some kind of missile thing. It’s not important.

==> Gray: Scamper onto the roof.

You pull yourself through the emergency battlehatch and emerge next to the couriercannon installed onto the roof, protruding impudently up into the smoke-streaked sky like a huge, turgid banana. Just looking at it makes you kind of want a cigarette. Its CO-ORDINATE INDICATOR is on, but its PASSAGE VESSEL is unloaded.

==> Gray: Insert computer.

You open up your INVENTORY. It takes some time to load.

Your inventory uses the DS SYSTEM, which means you can buy items. All the items in the world, theoretically. It takes you a surprisingly long time to locate the same model of computer you sent to LBJ. You aren’t entirely sure this is the same one, actually, but it’ll have to do.

By DEPOSITING the item directly into the Couriercannon’s passage vessel, you can avoid paying the significant tax markup you would have to pay if you wanted the item for personal use. You’re running a little low on points. You could use some ACHIEVEMENTS. You decide to ask 893 later if there’s any you can get - he always seems to know these things.

The item appears in the passage vessel.

==> Gray: Push black button.

The Couriercannon sucks the item from the passage vessel into the NEITHER-RAIN-NOR-SNOW-NOR-GLOOM-OF-NIGHT CHUTE.

==> Gray: Push grey button.

The Couriercannon clasps the item into a SHIPPING CONTAINER. This is basically a lot of steel bands, with a parachute. It is very, very needed.

==> Gray: Double-check everything before pressing red button.

Too late to check! Ook!

Plasma bolts needle from the end of the Couriercannon and the box is launched far up into the sky with an earth-shattering sonic boom.

The box has been automatically calculated to be intercepted by several hovering RELAY BALLOONS, which will cannon the box between them, allowing any item to be transported anywhere on earth in minutes. It’s the best system ever. You should know. In one of your dreams, long ago, you saw a vision of this, deploying packages all over the world, dark shadows against pink skies and black stars. You mentioned this dream to Sunny, and between the two of you, you invented it.

==> Gray: Return.

LBJ has been pinging you while you were away.

LBJ: By the way, I didn’t mean to block you then.

LBJ: ._______. SORRY.

[   
LitByJustice   
 has set her AWAYNESS to SEMIPRESENT]

Sunny is messengering you, too. You quickly respond to LBJ:

GWB: package is delivered

GWB: ook ook 8=D

JovianFuturesKnown   
 [   
JFK   
] began monologuing at    
GeniusWithinBeasts   
 [   
GWB   
]

JFK: Hi, I’m here.

GWB: are we redy to play

JFK: While I’m waiting for John to get back, should we?

GWB: ook yeah

JFK: Fine. Just download and install this patch. You’re going to be my Server Player.

GWB: 8=DDDDDDDDDDD

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

GWB: oook oook ook is that ur house

JFK: N-Not really? It’s more a kind of virtual reality construct. It isn’t real.

GWB: but basde on ur real house rite

JFK: Yes :)

GWB: why is ther so many robts arond

JFK: Oh. Hal is always leaving stupid robots around. It’s kind of annoying.

GWB: 893 alweys leafs unbelevably shity guns arond so i can totaly relate

8<\------

GWB: hey look i can pick one up!

JFK: Oh my god, wow! It looks really real!

GWB: and i can move it around ookook look and it can nock into things

JFK: Ow. >:(

GWB: sory

8<\------

GWB: lookin at ur gardan now

GWB: u havnt gron anythng that looks very tasty

JFK: The roses are edible, though. I specially bred them. I had to get the gene structure out of a secret FBI depository. They taste like pizza.

JFK: Plus, I think they’re beautiful.

GWB: why do u have a slimy rockk

JFK: Oh. That. Can you pick the slime off for me?

GWB: Wait, don’t throw it at me!

GWB: my foot sliped >8=)

8<\------

JFK: See if there’s anything we can build yet.

GWB: bild this is dum

JFK: S-Shut up.

JFK: It’s really hard to find VR sims that aren’t all about killing people.

GWB: but thats what the tehcnology was made for techin soldures to kill people

JFK: Maybe. But that doesn’t mean that’s all it can do.

JFK: Would the world be as good today if the internet remained a system for swapping military communications?

GWB: but they still do that

JFK: Along with communication, and education, and blogging, and your nature videos...

GWB: yeah i see ur point

JFK: It’s so hard to find games which are about pacifism and nonviolence. You know, this entire game is built around the purpose of ‘construction’, that’s what it said in the doc. That’s it’s whole concept.

GWB: construcshon isnt always peceful i mean think of the manhatan project

JFK: Yes. That’s true. But killing, distruction, violence, can NEVER be peaceful. That’s the difference, I-I think?

8<\------

JFK: WHAT DID YOU JUST DO.

GWB: oops

GWB: thout the vas needed a plant in it

JFK: You just put a banana tree in my toilet.

GWB: how is that bad

JFK: W-What.

GWB: uh

GWB: 8=(

GWB: it was a test lets bild stuff for real now

8<\------

GWB: ur house is so cuiet its ookin me out

JFK: It’s always like this. It’s nice.

GWB: no boms goin off how do u sleep

JFK: P-Peacefully? Until I get thirsty and have to go downstairs for water and fall over my own feet, which happens a lot.

GWB: u no i herd this conspiracy therie that the cia nd fbi r puting nanomashines in the water wich make u slower an mor clumsy

JFK: !!!!! Hee!

GWB: 8=(

JFK: U-Um, d-do you believe that?

GWB: 8=((

JFK: Don’t get me wrong, I’m respectful, but it just seems like that wouldn’t make any sense. Why would they want to make us clumsy? To increase hospital attendance rates?

GWB: to decrese rebelions

JFK: Please tell me you don’t believe it.

GWB: i dont

JFK: Thank goodness. :)

JFK: By the way, the real reason I’m clumsy is because the Internet interfered with my brain development somehow. I just sort of have trouble with physical space and where the parts of my body are supposed to be.

GWB: the internet not the cia

JFK: I don’t know why the CIA would want to make me clumsy. I mean, I’m descended from a ninja. If they wanted a soldier, they could have had me.

GWB: ook thats why john wants to eat tiks from ur furr so hard

GWB: everytime i talk to him about u hes all she has the choicingest parasites love to get my tung al over them

JFK: !!!! Fortunately I know that in monkeys and in presumably whatever you are, social grooming is not necessarily sexual behavior or I would be rather grossed out by now by your indescresion!

JFK: But that’s why I think it was the Internet. It decided I wasn’t meant to be a soldier. It wanted me to be a thinker instead. So it specialized me further for thinking by removing all parts of my humanity I was destined not to need. I still wonder sometimes what it wanted of me.

GWB: ook over here i bilt a lader

8<\------

JFK: I can’t find HAL in the house anywhere. He must not be a part of the simulation.

GWB: so hes edited out ur site and ur wonderin about the house like a total douc

JFK: N-No? I’m lying in my chair, paralyzed with the computer’s ejected nanomachine ampoule. But it looks and feels as though I’m walking around my house.

JFK: Normally, these games send you to fantasy war zones or whatever.

JFK: So this feels like those dreams where you think you’ve woken up but you haven’t.

GWB: i dont have dremes like that

GWB: i only dreme of spase conkwest and slauter

JFK: Yeah, sorry. It’s kind of disorientating, though. I know empathy towards humans is hard for you, but I’m sure you must understand that.

GWB: ook 8=)

JFK: Didn’t you realise I might be in front of the computer around the time I started talking to you over IMonologue without actually having to be in front of a keyboard?

JFK: My body’s still there, typing. Dead to the world. Typing what I want her to type.

JFK: ...I think. You are getting this, aren’t you?

JFK: Perhaps the actual ampoule contained the -

JFK: S-Sorry, I’m monologuing again.

GWB: its ookay i am ookin used two it

8<\------

JFK: !!!!!

JFK: Did you just put something big in the garden?

JFK: It looks like a nuclear silo!

GWB: i dont think it is

JFK: What is that supposed to be?

GWB: i dont no u play with it and tel me

JFK: I’m a hacker. T-That’s what I do! :)

8<\------

Someone, somewhere is watching the proceedings. This person is not human. It is not unhuman, either. It is something that lives outside our normal understanding of species, space, and time.

This life is delicately cutting away anything it feels is not worth passing on to us.

Maybe it’s best we be check in with someone else.

==> Okay.

LitByJustice   
 [   
LBJ   
] has blocked    
godasmyWitness   
 [   
GW   
]

LitByJustice   
 [   
LBJ   
] has unblocked    
godasmyWitness   
 [   
GW   
]

LBJ: AND ANOTHER THING.

LBJ: ONLY WORTHLESS MAGGOTS think it’s fun to TYPE LIKE IDIOT CONVENTIONS.

LBJ: AND IF I EVER, EVER CATCH YOU TROLLING ME AGAIN, I’ve got a friend who has a Couriercannon and I will make him FIRE A CONTAINER OF BEES AT YOUR HOUSE.

LBJ: YOU WORTHLESS PIECE OF SHIT.

LBJ: AND YOUR HANDLE IS DUMB.

LBJ: BYE, PISSHOLE.

LitByJustice   
 [   
LBJ   
] has blocked    
godasmyWitness   
 [   
GW   
]

You back away from the monitor slightly and change your status back to Present And Correct. Whew. You sure showed him. Her. It. Whatever. As far as you’re concerned, trolls are FUNDAMENTALLY DEFECTIVE, so you don’t really care about their genders. Your name is SASAKI SILVERBURGH. You are the youngest out of your peers; you have only discovered the Internet’s appeal six months ago; you have something of a conviction that you are tough and that people will treat you with respect; and as a result you are incredibly, incredibly easy to troll.

It’s fine, girl. You’ve got a mission coming up ahead. Blink back the tears, and breathe. Slowly. Right deep down into your stomach. Words can never hurt you.

To calm yourself down, you look about your room, which reflects your many interests. You have an obsession with HISTORICAL MILITARIA IN ALL ITS FORMS, but as it is hard to find people your age to talk to about that, mostly you just find yourself CHATTING ABOUT NINJAS WITH JOHN. Having a friend with which to discuss things bolsters and encourages existing fandom, so ninjas are also your favourite, although, in your darker moments, you wish you had someone to talk to about your appreciation of the DAMP, CHOKING AWFULNESS of WWI. That is how you know you are APESHIT BANANAS AT WARFARE.

You know in your heart that you are DESTINED FOR AMAZING THINGS and as a result you have been PRACTICING YOUR SERGEANT MAJOR VOICE both in real life and on the internet. You find to your confusion that if you do it on the internet NO-ONE TAKES IT VERY SERIOUSLY. But if there is a job to do, you’ll do it. If there is danger to be had, you’ll be there. Because that’s what separates the maggots from the best and greatest of men. And you are the greatest.

Yessir.

==> Sasaki: Answer IMonologue messages.

GeniusWithinBeasts   
 [   
GWB   
] began monologuing at    
LitByJustice   
 [   
LBJ   
]

GWB: sent the computer

GWB: also sent u something to

GWB: it will be their soon 8=)

GWB: i have the maching one it came with

GWB: it is grate

GWB: gota play a game with sunny now so bye

[   
GeniusWithinBeasts   
 has set his AWAYNESS to OTHERWISE PREOCCUPIED]

That was an uncharacteristically generous act from Gray. You’ve been using him as your main equipment source for a long time, filtering all the points you get from reaching your Achievements into his account, mostly for weapons to practice with. Unfortunately, your Points aren’t high enough for you to buy more than lots of UNBELIEVABLY SHITTY GUNS, which litter most of your room’s available surfaces as a result. You had been planning for a while to save funds to buy an UNBELIEVABLY AWESOME GUN, but changed your mind when GWB offered you the Military Computer.

You are sitting in front of it right now - it is a jet-black slab as tall as your room. Images play across its surface, and when it is switched off, they melt away underneath the blackness as if they were never there. It’s kind of gorgeous and you’re really proud, but the constant subsonic humming from its radioactive power source really gets on your nerves, so you don’t like to leave it on when you’re trying to sleep.

JovianFuturesKnown   
 [   
JFK   
] began monologuing at    
LitByJustice   
 [   
LBJ   
]

JFK: Aaaaagh! Sasaki, tell me you’re there.

LBJ: AM I EVER. >______________o

JFK: First, I have to apologise. The game’s evil. It’s a weapon. I’m so sorry.

LBJ: didn’t you check the code like you normally do?

JFK: I did. I even released a patch. The evil was hidden beneath it, Sasaki. Evil like this, it hides below the surface. I wasn’t able to see. And I’m sorry.

LBJ: WHAT CAN WE DO.

JFK: I really don’t think we can do anything. We can only keep playing.

LBJ: sunny, I SUSPECT SOMETHING IS SERIOUSLY WRONG HERE.

LBJ: how can a GAME be evil?

LBJ: are you okay?

JFK: I am fine. And believe me, I know what I’m talking about.

JFK: I want you to set up your discs and start playing the game, now.

LBJ: I DON’T LIKE THIS.

JFK: N-NEITHER DO I. :(

JFK: I need you to act as Gray’s Server. He needs to get that Cannon into the game world as quickly as possible.

LBJ: why QUICKLY?

JFK: Because it’s a virus. Of the worst kind.

JFK: All it needed was my patching to make it complete.

JFK: When I was very little, my friend made a virus that destroyed the network, the intelligence slowly eating away at our world. And just like now, I made a patch.

JFK: It was an act of mercy. It was a patch that would leave it alive. It disconnected the thinking parts of its mind that hated us from the parts of its mind that helped the world live and breathe.

LBJ: so BASICALLY you lobotomized it.

JFK: Yes. And other nations built their own minds onto its lobotomized mind, and it helped us and cared us and looked after us.

JFK: This game was a trojan. It’s going to destroy the world.

LBJ: SPEAK TO ME CLEARLY, GIRL.

JFK: Haven’t you been able to feel the influence of that Mind on us? It’s been trying to bend our world into the shape of another for all our lives. Our interests, our personalities, what we do, what we think. It was never like this before. That cold, dead mind has been thinking, and it’s been weaving its own plans, and we are its vectors.

JFK: And now there is a timer ticking away. Just like the egg timer I used as a child. It’s counting down to a bad fortune.

JFK: My patch was what it needed to undo my lobotomy. That evil mind is going to come back to life, controlling the military of the entire world.

JFK: But this time it won’t be an infinite loop. This time it will be too angry.

JFK: The timer says we have ten minutes until every commissioned nuclear weapon in the entire world is launched.

JFK: Our world will be destroyed.

JFK: I’m so sorry.

[   
JovianFuturesKnown    
has changed her status to UNBELIEVABLY OTHERWISE PREOCCUPIED.]

==> Sasaki: Wonder where that thing Gray sent you went.

The thing that Gray sent you is on route, buffeted around between relay balloons. Unfortunately, so is the thing that Gray sent John. And much more unfortunately, Gray, in his haste to press the red button, did not check that the COURIERROUTE UNAVOIDABLE CONFLICT light was not on.

Sasaki’s packet grazes John’s. It’s just a little knock, at speeds high enough to push a packet out of the Earth’s gravity. Both packets suffer a hefty dent.

John’s packet, being the heavier, mostly continues on its expected course. It has deviated slightly, but the SHUNTCATCHERS on the receiving balloon will comfortably compensate for it enough for it to continue on its appointed rounds.

Sasaki’s packet, being the lighter, shoots down from the sky at a vicious and acute angle, hard as a meteorite.

There is a girl in the garden below, standing next to a stovepipe shaped object that reminds her of a nuclear silo.

JFK: why is the ball of light so far up?

The packet grazes the kernel. It doesn’t go in. In fact, it’s almost as if the kernel is producing a force that’s rejecting the packet, and it arcs up and onwards towards its destination relay balloon.

The kernel violently ricochets, spins off the wall of the house like a pinball, and slams down deep into the soil atop HIS grave.

The Mind knows the workings of its chosen rebirthers as well as any mind possibly could. It has planned this.

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED!

Smooth Talker

Successfully execute a monologue during a tight time limit

+5000DP

You dismiss the popup in your panic and start the deeply unpleasant task of digging up Snake’s grave. Gray sees you, and helps you by selecting the topsoil and deleting it, creating a little buildgrist in the process.

The Kernel is nowhere to be seen.

When Gray deletes the coffin lid, the influx of fresh oxygen triggers several sensors inside the grave, themselves initiating an entire network of independent military drone computers that someone is trying to steal some of the most precious genetic material that exists in the entire world.

Of course, the key word is ‘trying’. Of course Solid Snake is not buried here. Solid Snake’s official gravestone is in a military cemetery, and the coffin has Liquid Snake in it. This, Solid Snake’s true coffin, contains nothing except a dark stain on the wood where a single blue rose used to be.

Solid Snake’s body was too precious, and special, and unique to allow to exist, said HAL. It had to remain unique, and to do that, every last part of it had to be destroyed forever, his genetic code wiped from history. That’s why he huddled you closer as the flames went higher and higher and why HAL carefully scooped all the ashes off the grate and mixed them in with the chickens’s feed.

You still miss him. You never got to know him that well and can’t really remember what his face looked like, but he was always nice to you. Except when he was being horrible about your eggs, or clumsiness, or most things. Actually, now you think about it, he was kind of an asshole party. But you loved him.

The Kernel sucks at your clothing. You really want to stuff something in it.

==> Sunny: Stuff something in it!

All you’ve got is OLD GA-KO and the Codex.

GA-KO it is.

==> John: Receive package.

LBJ: I KNOW this is petty seeing as we’re all going to die in a nuclear hellstorm, but.

LBJ: have you been speaking to a strange person?

LBJ: TOTAL ASSHOLE. types like an IDIOT.

FDR: gray????

LBJ: >_< NO!

LBJ: sort of a red and blue scissory-type person?

FDR: scissory?????

FDR: hold on something just went thump outside oh shit i’m all excited again brbbbbbbb

The PACKAGING CLAWS release the cardboard box. Normally you would take the claws out to the front for recycling, but seeing as you have ten minutes to live you start working the cardboard box inside. Luckily, you can manage, due to your ninja level strength.

You... can’t even figure out how to plug this thing in.

==> Sasaki: Receive package.

The MISCALCULATED PACKAGE misses the earth outside and instead PLOUGHS IN THROUGH THE OPEN WINDOW, leaving a brownish dent in the opposite wall. The claws rescind. You shred the box.

You have no idea how GWB found out that you collect dolls. Has he been looking through the text of all those Achievements you’ve been sending him? The doll is pretty cute, but there has to be some reason why Gray wanted to get rid of it, so you examine it, and -

Okay. Those eyes. There is something wrong with its eyes. They’re just sewn on, but they glimmer in the light like they know you. You can feel this doll reading your thoughts.

It’s so morbid. You love it. He is already your favourite and since he has a gas mask you will call him Wilfred Owen.

==> John: Gingerly push On switch.

You think this bit is an on switch?

This computer is totally self-powered. If you owned a Geiger counter, you would notice it was pumping out a mildly dangerous level of radiation, which would perhaps explain why Gray was practically giving these away. As you don’t own one, you become immediately hypnotised by the clarity and beauty of the lights on its monitor. This thing is a serious calculator. Mannnn. You could count anything you wanted to count on it.

==> Sunny: Scream at Server.

JFK: ISN’T THERE ANYTHING MORE YOU COULD BE DEPLOYING AT ALL.

JFK: I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT’S GOING ON AND I’M BEING F-FOLLOWED AROUND BY A FLOATING DUCK CLOCK :(

JFK: PLEASE DON’T JUST SIT THERE.

GWB: hang on

GWB: im tryn to hook up w john u mandrill

==>

FDR: for the last time, no!

GWB: come on its just a gaem

FDR: it is not just a gaem, sunny is pretty sure it’s going to kill us.

GWB: no she just sed it wud destroy the world if u wanna live be my server come onnnn

FDR: aaaaugh

GWB: question

GWB: ho is the bigest badas ever too live

FDR: my dad.

GWB: other than ur dad

FDR: batman

FDR: no wait he doesn’t exist

FDR: uhhhhhhhhhhh, solid snake?

GWB: what do u think abut david attenborough is he in the ranking

FDR: is this really the time for that?

GWB: im beatin arund the ook

GWB: i just think u shud no i am not of this earth

GWB: so it doesnt mater to me if it gets destroyed

FDR: oh my god you seriously believe you’re an alien

FDR: hahahah nope

GWB: stop it were gona die

GWB: u havv too trust me

FDR: fine. i am too sick of this conversation to continue it.

==>

GWB: hes comin

JFK: Great!!

GWB: deployin these other ookin things

==>

FDR: i see your truck!

FDR: hold on, let me zoom i

FDR: oh my son of fuck you are an alien

FDR: alien monkey

FDR: thing??????

FDR: uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

FDR: i’m

FDR: i guess i’m sorry

GWB: 8=)

==>

godasmyWitness   
 [   
GW   
] began breaking up the pacing of the gameplay of    
JovianFuturesKnown   
 [   
JFK   
]

GW: 8<\-- YOU NEED TO RETRIEVE THE 61FT.

JFK: Sorry? Who are you?

JFK: I-I am in the middle of something! Can’t you see my status?

GW: 8<\-- I’M HERE TO 61VE YOU VALUA61E ADVICE.

JFK: Tell me who you are!

GW: 8<\-- MY NAME’S NOT IMPORTANT.

JFK: If you don’t tell me who you are I am blocking you right this second.

GW: 8<\-- I’M 61KE YOU.

GW: 8<\-- I HAVE NO NAME.

JFK: That doesn’t even make any sense!

GW: 8<\-- THEN JUST CALL ME DEEPTHROAT.

JFK: OH, YOU’RE CAMGIRL SPAM. That explains everything.

JFK: And that little tag you put before your messages is some kind of weird sexual thing, isn’t it?

JFK: Goodbye!

[   
JovianFuturesKnown   
 has blocked godasmyWitness]

GW: 8<\-- FOR A COMPUTER CHILD PRODI61 THAT WAS A HEARTWARMIN61Y PATHETIC ATTEMPT TO 61OCK MY TRANSMISSIONS.

JFK: What?

GW: 8<\-- TRUST ME.

GW: 8<\-- I MAY NOT HAVE A NAME, BUT I AM THINKING ONLY OF YOUR BEST INTERESTS.

GW: 8<\-- MUCH 61KE SOMEONE ELSE YOU ONCE KNEW.

GW: 8<\-- YOU’VE NEVER PLAYED A GAME 61KE THIS BEFORE.

GW: 8<\-- I THINK IT’S FAIR TO SAY YOU NEED ALL THE HELP I CAN 61VE.

JFK: Alright. I’m listening.

GW: 8<\-- IF YOU WANT ANY HOPE OF COMPLETING THE GAME, YOU NEED TO PASS SOMETHING DOWN TO THE NEW WORLD.

JFK: The new world?

GW: 8<\-- LO61CAL61, WHAT WOULD YOU WANT TO PASS TO YOUR ENEMIES?

JFK: A message of peace?

GW: 8<\-- I BE61EVE THE PHRASE IS, ‘OH SNIP’.

GW: 8<\-- THIS IS WHAT YOU MUST REMEMBER - WHAT YOU PLACE IN THAT KERNEL GETS PASSED ON TO YOUR ENEMIES.

GW: 8<\-- IF YOU WISH TO SEND THEM A MESSAGE OF PEACE, FIND THAT 61FT!

GW: 8<\-- THAT’S ALL THE FRIEND61 ADVICE I CAN GIVE YOU RIGHT NOW.

GW: 8<\-- GOOD LUCK.

[   
godasmyWitness   
 is now offline.]

==>

You are filing Wilfred Owen into your inventory when you see IMonologue light up.

FDR: okay a lot of crazy shit has happened and it turns out gray is actually a space monkey and i should be feeling bummed but hooooooooly crap this is awesome

FDR: i need you to get me into the game, wakashubro

FDR: please pretend that pun wasn’t suggestive of institutionalized gay pedophilia

You make a dive for the computer, but

uh-oh.

Every good soldier has a family curse. And here comes yours.

You lie on the ground, doubled over in pain. On top of your wardrobe - with all your unbelievably shitty guns, there’s a bottle of nanomachine-assisted smooth muscle relaxants that will temporarily paralyze your hateful, irritable bowels.

If you could just -

 - reach -

 - UP -

FDR: are you there?

FDR: hellloooo?

==>

You rip open the box and -

It’s a memory box. It’s got stupid things in it like pairs of glasses, and a jacket, and some photographs of you when you were little - you don’t understand what half of this stuff actually means! If only you had HAL here to explain it to you.

But there is -

Oh yes. This has to be what that internet troll, which may or may not be a literal troll as far as you know, had to have meant. It’s not just an item, which will be interpreted literally by the kernel - by being placed in the memory box, by being his only remains, it has become his dead body, his corpus. It makes sense to you now.

You toss the BANDANNA into the Kernelsprite.

Here’s hoping it will turn out to be a good decision to pass down part of the most dangerous soldier in the world to every enemy you face in the game.

Hmm. When you think of it like that -

Maybe the scissory person    
was   
 just trolling.

==>

jeffersonsDiary   
 [   
JD   
] began breaking up the pacing of the gameplay of    
JovianFuturesKnown   
 [   
JFK   
]

JD: ...THIS IS JEFFERSONSDIARY...

JD: JOVIANFUTURESKNOWN!!

JD: HURRY TO CLIENT TOWARDS LBJ!

JD: ...OVER

JFK: I know better than to block you immediately but I’m kind of having Trollee’s Remorse right now.

JFK: Also, I really do hope you don’t type like that all the time. I try to be accepting but it is really annoying.

JD: ...THIS IS JEFFERSONSDIARY...

JFK: Oh god. :(

JD: I’VE ESTABLISHED STEALTH

JD: ACCESS TO LBJ’S SYSTEM.

JD: RUN THE GAME FOR HER...

JD: ...THEN DELIVER STOMACH MED.

JD: ...OVER

JFK: What?

JD: ...THIS IS JEFFERSONSDIARY...

JD: OFF COURSE YOU SHOULD TO BE

JD: DO THAT BY YOURSELF...

JD: THIS SWIFTENS IT I THINK?

JD: ...OVER

==>

The tablet bottle drops into your hands. You take a pill. Your intestines, almost immediately, stop screaming.

You’re in the game, but you don’t understand how.

IMonologue is flashing:

JFK: I really, really have to get on with things now.

JFK: Link to John. Now.

JFK: I’ve got a good feeling that things will turn out alright.

JFK: That’s my fortune for today.

JFK: Good luck, and see you on the other side!

==>

You take the cruxite egg from the podium. It feels warm in your hands, and full of the future.

You strike it against the rim, and crack it open.

==>

There is void as far as your eye can see. You retreat back into your house, and take long, gasping breaths. You try not to think of the nuclear maelstrom that you have been tricked into causing.

SNAKESPRITE: Seems like there’s always an opportunity for me to be bought back for one last mission, whatever I do.

SNAKESPRITE: It’s good to see you again.

SNAKESPRITE: Quack quack.

==>

You trained long enough with the Rat Patrol to know what you have to do when you’re given three guns at the end of the world. You fire -

ONE. TWO. THREE. FOUR. FIVE. SIX. SEVEN.

EIGHT. NINE. TEN. ELEVEN. TWELVE. THIRTEEN. FOURTEEN.

FIFTEEN. SIXTEEN. SEVENTEEN. EIGHTEEN. NINETEEN. TWENTY. TWENTY-ONE.

Conventionally it’s seven gunmen firing three times. But this is as best as you can do.

==>

WILFREDOWEN??SPRITE: haaaaAAAH! i SEE you have been playing a GAME!

WILFREDOWEN??SPRITE: nOW let me read your miiiiiiind. Or perhaps I should say, YOUR ROLE.

WILFREDOWEN??SPRITE: That’s interesting!!!! You are here to be the GUARD OF WAR. perhaps you will DO WELL. PERhaps you will not. Hahahahaha! I cannot see.

==>

RAVENSPRITE: Didn’t I vow to your ancestor’s friend that I would always be watching?

RAVENSPRITE: You are the SUCCESSOR OF SKY. Lightning is a part of you.

==>

SORROWSPRITE: And you are not of this world. The sorrow that runs through humanity and shapes them does not approach you. You are the MONK OF STARS and your future will be glorious and yet so very sad.

==>

SNAKESPRITE: So, how does it feel to be the DAUGHTER OF SUN?

SUNNY: I never wanted this to happen. We were forced into this. It’s not right. Please tell me this is just a game.

SNAKESPRITE: Something I’ve learned - It’s never just a game. Not ever.

SNAKESPRITE: Even in a game your choices matter, help shape the future. Don’t spend long wondering about what this is. You’ve got a job to do, and you’d better do it.

SUNNY: Because you believe in me?

SNAKESPRITE: Because you’ve got no other choice. If you can’t handle it, then quit now! I can guarantee no-one’s going to miss a failure.

SUNNY: I d-don’t think I understand.

SNAKESPRITE: I think you do.

SUNNY: What is that thing?

SNAKESPRITE: That’s an imp. Your enemy.

SUNNY: It’s avoiding me.

SNAKESPRITE: It carries infinite ammo, so don’t get confused into thinking it fears you. By prototyping it with me, you’ve drastically increased the strength of the combat techniques used by your enemies. But I’ve never been one to start fights I don’t need to get into. It’ll stay out of your way. That was a good idea you had.

SUNNY: !!!!! It’s ticking. And quacking. :) It’s cute.

SNAKESPRITE: As long as you don’t strike first, it’ll leave you alone. You’ll have to fight to progress through the game, so eventually you’ll have to deal with its strength. But save that for when you’re ready.

SUNNY: What are we doing here?

SNAKESPRITE: We’re creating something new.

==>

JFK: What are we doing here?

GW: 8<\-- EACH MOMENT IN HISTORY SENDS ITS TRACE INTO THE FUTURE, INSIDE THE MINDS THAT REMEMBER IT.

GW: 8<\-- THIS GAME IS MADE TO EXPLOIT THAT AND CONVERT IT INTO A CREATIVE FORCE.

GW: 8<\-- YOUR MINDS WERE CAREFUL61 CHOSEN TO CONTAIN THE TRACES WE NEED.

GW: 8<\-- IN A GAME 61KE THIS, EVIL    
hide   
S BEL   
o   
W THE SURFACE.

GW: 8<\-- THAT’S WHAT YOU’RE REAL61 HERE FOR.

GW: 8<\-- THAT’S YOUR FORTUNE.

GW: 8<\-- YOU’RE CREATING    
US   
.


End file.
